Category Archives: Arts & Music

This year for spring break, Park Ranger and I went to a Gospel camp in Warsaw, Missouri. Actually, it wasn’t in Warsaw. It was in a small area with a lake and a few houses near Warsaw. That is, if a 40 minute drive counts as near.

It was a medium length trip; if you consider two and a half hours as medium. When we had left Kansas, we didn’t see many more cities. Soon all there was was scrubby bushes and browning pine trees. Before we left, we had packed a medium suitcase, two lunch bags, a tote bag, a purse, and two pillows. Then, taking advantage of every bubble of air in our compact car, Park Ranger and I started to drive towards our destination. Wherever that was.

We were half way out of our neighborhood when Park Ranger yelled, “Diamond! Look!” Before I go into this subject, perhaps I should explain my definition of the boundaries of my neighborhood. My neighborhood spans from where there are more people and stores than there are trees there. From that BP gas station, to the bank, to Palazzo 16, to Orange leaf, Sonic, the high school, and Zips.

We had just passed The Egg & I diner at 45 mph, and I was watching some elderly men in a Volkswagen, eating burgers. Then Park Ranger turned to me with an incredulous look on her face. “Diamond! DId you see that? That old lady?”

“Yeah. But they’re guys. Not ladies.”

“Not them! Her!” She pointed rigidly to a silver Lexus passing by. “What’s so special about her?” I asked.

“She looks like 007’s boss from Sky fall!”

Park Ranger stepped on the gas so I could look again. Soon, I was gaping wider than a large mouth bass. The resemblance- short, platinum blond hair, serious face- was almost scary.

Later we had left my neighborhood and after one hour, and were (or is it was? I don’t know any grammar,) in Missouri! We didn’t see a city, but we just were driving on a paved road with few signs that indicated lodging and food, with a second adjacent road, but going the opposite direction. Oh, how BORING.

The Acura crossed over a hill, making rattling noises when it did. Oh, how BORING. There weren’t any mountains or hills, just pine trees, yellowing grass, and occasional farms. Oh, how BORING. Then, out of some intergalactic wormhole forming behind us, a buzz came from it and the most ridiculously fast motorcycle had passed. Nicknamed Bumblebee by Park Ranger and I, because his motorcycle was so fast it buzzed and he was wearing black and yellow, he made both of us jump in shock. He was going so fast, like 100 mph, that he passed cars in front of us and switched to the other lane to exceed all of them. In less than a minute, Bumblebee was no where in sight.

It was really not so exciting after that. There were endless fields of who-knows-what and who-really-cares and feral horses and cows and wild chickens. One thing was not boringly baked with the boring-est boring and seasoned with boring and drizzled with the boring works and a side of fresh boring was that we spotted to wild turkeys. They were hidden among the tall grass so they were hard to see.

When we started to get close to our destination, we saw a 1800’s white picket fence and blue house. It. Was. Old. Private mailboxes were all the rage in this tiny neighborhood. It reminded me of Secretariat and Little House on the Prairie. They have Reese and Nichols in countryside! Even tiny towns have big businesses around.

We had found the place we were looking for. It was a Tiffany blue motel and Tiffany blue church. There was a large lake, too. There was a hand-built dock with a pretty view. The water was very murky and you could see any fish. I assumed that people who lived here had to fish daily for food because there wasn’t a grocery store or restaurant around for miles.

There were three friendly dogs too. Maggie, Shelby, and Junior. Maggie was a middle aged golden retriever. Shelby was a mix between a great Dane, and Jack Russel; she looked like vanilla custard with Oreo crumbs and chunks in it. Junior was a young mutt- a mix between a yellow lab and a terrier and was yellow.

Our motel room was on the third floor seventh room of Motel A. Our room was cramped like college dormitory. There were two sets of bunk beds inter locked, a teeny bathroom, a shower (shared with the room next door), and a closet thing. I found out that we had to share this room with another mother and her daughter. I was getting sleepy. So then, I showered, brushed my teeth, went to the bathroom, and slept in the top bunk. My bed was small, but Park ranger put a sheet and a sleeping bag on it for me.

Yanzibian – 6/10/12: Today is the day that we divide into groups, travel to the poorest of poor’s homes that have children attending Yanzibian Central School. i was in a group with Mr. Shen, the P.E. teacher of YCS, Cindy Wang, and Park Ranger.

Someone actually drove us half way up the mountain. It was so bumpy and dusty that whenever we tried to nip a nap of the car ride, we would lightly set our head down and.. BONK! The noise of a human head colliding with a glass window was not pleasant. Then when we were 89% of the way there, we had to get off the car and walk the rest of the way. Whoa! It was a hard walk, (HARD ROCK!) (Think about it. The student that we are visiting has to walk TWO HOURS down the mountain. Just to get to school. That’s one workout.)(I forgot to tell you. The reason we are visiting the student is to provide the most hard-working, not to mention living in hard conditions, with scholarships and 500 yuan. It will be exciting. YAY!)

continued…..

Close Contact with a Cow

Our Group

Home on the Mountain

Walking on the mountain toward Shen Xue Ying’s home

Our actual team – the man in stripe is our driver.

Shen Xue Ying and her cousin and her parents came out to meet us.

Dried corns hanging under the window sill of the house

The yellow fruit is their home grown Pi Pa. The other plate full is sunflower seeds.

Cindy and I are getting ready to interview Shen Xue Ying. I am the note taker.

She Xue Ying poured us hot water for tea. She is 12 years old.

Shen Xue Ying is a quiet girl, a little shy in front of the camera.

Shen Xue Ying’s little cousin. He said he liked the candy we brought from Kansas.

Cindy, me and Shen Xue Ying

Shen Xue Ying’s dad is cracking open the fresh walnuts for us, using a curved farming knife.

They prepared a table full of their best dishes to treat us a lunch!

Our driver later drove the car to the foot of Shen Xue Ying’s house. He wanted to save us more walking the mountain road.

Shen Xue Ying made a special card for us.

She drew flowers and put a pretty ribbon on the card. Very thoughtful.

Walnuts on the tree – The first time ever for me to see walnuts on the tree!

Chimney of Shen Xue Ying’s house – we went up the hill on the back of the house.

Shen Xue Ying and her parents.

Shen Xue Ying’s family, her aunt’s family and us.

That’s what I see when I look out from Shen Xue Ying’s house.

But we eventually spotted our destination: an old wooden farmhouse that had angry barking dogs. We also encountered some cows. They were gentle, fat cows that lumbered on the rocky ground, stopping every while to eat some foliage. As we neared the baying dogs, Shen Xue Ying, our student, hurried over with her cousin to greet us. She led us into a flat dirt surface right outside their front door. When we had finished greeting the rest of their family, Park Ranger took out a bag of Jolly Ranchers and gave it to Shen Xue Ying’s cousin. He loved it at first taste after he put it his mouth. I can’t blame him; it was watermelon flavored. Then they set up a little table with small stools. I felt humble and embarrassed to be treated like this. They brought out a bowl of their home-grown, juiciest 枇杷, and another large bowl of tasty sunflower seeds. Then I prepared my notebook and my pen, so that I could write down notes for the interview. Park Ranger video taped the interview, while Cindy and I asked questions, talked and took notes. Then after the interview came a surprise. They served us lunch! I was so amazed at the mouth-watering dishes that they brought out, but at the same time I felt guilty because they were probably spending a whole month’s worth of money making us lunch! It was a little early for lunch, but the aromas of the spicy pork and green peppers taunted me, and I didn’t want to be rude, so I ate a small quantity of cucumber and spicy stuff. After that delicious meal, Cindy gave Shen Xue Ying and her family a small gift. A xian dan（咸蛋）and a bottle of instant nai cha (奶茶). It felt really awkward to be giving a poor farming family an egg when they already had a coop of chickens. After that was a slightly tearful farewell, then we went down the mountain and went back to YCS to meet with other groups.

I went to China this year, for 2 reasons. One, to visit families. Two, to participate in a Youth Volunteers Event organized by KCCAA Youth Hope Fund – teaching English in the KC Friendship School. The school we were teaching in was in a small town in the deep rural area in Shan Xi province in China, called Yanzibian, a mountainous village that was close to the heart of the catastrophic earthquake in May 12, 2008 in China. It was a seven hour long bus ride to get from Xi’an to Yanzibian. One thing I noticed was mountains. Lots of them. And to get hrough them we had to get through tunnels, 77 of them. Mom and I actually counted, but I stopped counting half way through, because there were so many. Mom counted all of them and even wrote down the majority of their names, and others, ones that she missed and didn’t miss, were no-names. We had never been through so many tunnels.

Now you’re probably wondering, Who’s ‘we’? ‘We’, (Cindy Wang, Tammy Lee, Grace Brentano, Eric Koch, Eric and Katrina Zhao, Promethium, and I) are a group of volunteers from a group called KC Youth Hope Fund. Every year, a group of student volunteers and parent volunteers travels to a rural, poor, and needy area in China to teach English. I decided, Sounds interesting. So, I took part this year.

We arrived Yanzibian at about 4pm. The ride into that small town was quite bumpy . We were greeted by a group of teachers including principal Mei. He is the principal of the Yanzibian Central Elementary School. We were anxious to see the KC Friendship School right away, but were taken to the Yanzibian Central Elementary School which was where we would be teaching. This school was actually better than I thought! In my mind I thought it was only going to be one story, though it was 4 stories tall. I thought that there was no playground, no real bathroom, but there was an acceptable playground, a real but smelly bathroom, and AIR-CONDITIONING!

That day we walked to the Yanzibian Central School and were just visiting. We dropped by each of the classrooms to see how their English was doing. Then each of us did some one-on-one with the students by their desk. Eric Koch, the Blond freshman from Pembroke who can kinda of speak Chinese, (better than most kids), was trying hard to speak to the kids. Whenever during a conversation of English with the kids, and the kid looked confused, Eric would say, “woe dee jongwen boo hao.” （我的中文不好。）

Rate this:

Share this:

Like this:

On Friday, there was an acrobats
show, and they are The National Acrobats of China! There were yo-yos, and really cool
everybody-stand-on-a-bike-and-cover-the-bicyclist’s- face act, and juggling act
with 10 balls, but my favorite part was the amateur swan lake! There was this
really big clumsy guy dressed as the swan, and another guy in the suit. They
keep falling over on each other on purpose of course. Then the swan is so heavy
that the guy in the suit faint. The swan is about to do another leap when he
finds that the guy in the suit fainted! The swan tells him to come up, but
doesn’t, and realizes that he has fainted. The swan runs over, and tries to do
CPR on him, and it doesn’t work. The swan puckers up his lips, get ready to do
mouth-to-mouth resurrection, and the guy in the suit gets up and slaps the swans
face and runs away!

Who: Students in grades K-3, 4-6. 7-9, 10-12What: Any art that can have a still digital image
(This is an art contest; NOT a photography contest)When:Extended to May 9th 2011How: Entries must be entered onlineWhy: Over $5000 in prizes go to students and teachers for each contestGet Published!

Rate this:

Yes, it’s Pi day! you may be wondering what it is! since it is March (3) fourteenth (14) and pi is 3.1415926535, the 3.14 is March 14th! My dad is baking an apple pie to celebrate! you should too. Next year, … Continue reading →

Rate this:

Like this:

Submit your entry to any Johnson County Library location by Feb. 28, 2011. Winners will be announced during National Library Week, April 10-16. Winners will receive gift certificates from the Friends of the Library and have their creations reproduced on bookmarks distributed throughout the library system. All designs become the property of the Johnson County Library and cannot be returned. Entry form is at: http://www.jocolibrary.org/upload/library/docs/pdf/Friends/BookmarkContestEntryForm2011.pdf